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Someone please clarify this to me. We took a wrestler who went through weighins and skin check. The “dr.” Looked at the spot....examined it and said it’s fine just keep it wrapped. He wrestled twice and then the third match the official asked him to unwrap it and they then said he couldn’t wrestle anymore. In my opinion a refund should be given back to this family. Is this in the “norm” for an official to do this after passing skin check?

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Someone please clarify this to me. We took a wrestler who went through weighins and skin check. The “dr.” Looked at the spot....examined it and said it’s fine just keep it wrapped. He wrestled twice and then the third match the official asked him to unwrap it and they then said he couldn’t wrestle anymore. In my opinion a refund should be given back to this family. Is this in the “norm” for an official to do this after passing skin check?

Was this an actual doctor or a trainer?I've seen plenty of trainers who are very knowledgeable on skin conditions but have also seen a lot that have no clue. The fact that they had you wrap it makes me wonder since simply covering it will not prevent spreading to others and also keeps dried and healed spots moist.. So, by covering it you probably kept the spot from drying up or staying dried up. So when the official asked to see it, it probably looked moist and still active because it had been under the wrap all day and not dried up thus making it appear active. Its unfortunate that your wrestler couldn't finish his tournament but in a situation like this the official does have the authority if he thinks the skin condition is active. Perhaps you can post a pic of the spot. This site could be a good place to educate people on skin conditions and prevention. Maybe Joe could create a section with pictures to help people better recognize whether something is a skin condition or simply a blemish.

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We had a young man pass skin checks on Saturday night but was told "Go buy some antibiotic cream and see me in the morning". This was from one of the trainers. He arrived on Sunday, couldn't find her, so we just wrestled. He wrestled his first match and then I get a text from one of the ISWA Ladies that he was DQ'd because he didn't check in and that when he gets checked he will be back in the bracket. Immediately took him over to the trainers where I was told he could have been checked by any trainer and he didn't need to see that specific person. I said, he was told to see that specific person so we tried to do what we were told. So I said, will you check him and go clear him. He said no because he had already been DQ'd. I explained what happened and he still wouldn't clear him (it was acne btw). So I asked if the rule is that he could have been seen by anyone, why wouldn't he clear him? He said I needed to find the person he saw last night. So...you can imagine I went super nova because of the double speak. I finally just went to Jim Littlejohn and he cleared him. His reasoning was "if he was cleared at weigh-ins, then he is cleared to wrestle. There is no see me in the morning stuff."

To answer Jim Calhoun's question, the young man should have been allowed to wrestle. He made it through skin checks at weigh-ins, therefore, the official should have had no say so. This is just one of the many issues our club had with this tournament this weekend. I appreciate all of the time the ISWA people put in to make this tournament happen. I understand how much time and energy go in to it. It's a daunting task. But I will say this...we pay our money to be a chartered club, our kids buy their cards, we pay to host 2 tournament every year, and we pay our entry fees. Our families paid almost $8,000 this weekend to attend this tournament. Hotels, food, entry fees, gate fees, gas, etc. We had 26 families pay on average of $300 (Im guessing low I think). We also paid $400 to enter the ISWA Elementary State Duals and spend over $2000 on hotels for our families to attend. That came from our club to help families offset the cost...So I have every right to be brutally honest and I'm going to be...

1. The officiating was brutal. Barring a handful of instances, at NO time did I feel like the officials we came into contact with knew the rules of the sport or had the kids safety in their best interests. Numerous times our staff was told that "this is my mat and this is my area." Well...it's not. You didn't pay for the mat and your name isn't on it. You are paid to take care of the kids and serve the kids. You didn't do that. We had a coach yell "time" to an official when he didn't hear the buzzer and the towel wasn't thrown. His response "Coach your kid, not me." I had an official tell me that I couldn't talk to the other coach after the match by his mat and that I couldn't talk to my wrestler and his parents who were sitting at the bleachers. He followed me off the mat to tell me that. 4 different officials told me that if wrestler A and wrestler B are hip to hip and B has stepped over the leg of A but A is under both arms...this is not a takedown or reversal by A. One official told me that you can lock around the legs after a takedown or control has been established. 5 different officials didn't know the basic rules of the sport. We had 3 different mats wait for kids to have coaches, which I have no issue with at all. Then I look down and see my kid wrestling. I sprint down to coach about the last minute. I asked the table help and the official why the match was started when my Novice wrestler didn't have a coach. I was told they were given the directions to start the match with or without the coach. So...I asked Littlejohn about that situation and it was made clear to me that they were NOT told that. So again, we had an official just do what he wanted instead of doing what he was told by the head official.

2. Until there is a better system in place to verify the ages and grades of the kids wrestling on teams at the state duals, we most likely won't attend again. You can take that how you want...but many of the teams now know what happened in our division and are aware of the team that did it.

3. Wifi/Cell Service/Track Wrestling - Terrible

4. Bathroom and locker rooms - Terrible

There is a better than 50% chance we will not be an ISWA Club next year unless some things change. The ISWA brought in about $77,000 from this tournament. I don't know the net because I don't know the expenses, but with $77,000 you should be able get better officials and, IMO, a better venue. Yep, this tournament had about 400 more kids this year, but I'm telling you, if you don't put out a better product, you will start losing kids again. HYWAY or some other organization will start challenging you again and this time, they might take over. People work hard for their money and this organization and the people the hire better start realizing people won't pay for a crappy event that they feel like they didn't get a fair shake at.

Our club had a great day of wrestling and finished really well for a small club in rural Indiana...but we had a terrible experience. I honestly don't know if we will be back.

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1. The officiating was brutal. Barring a handful of instances, at NO time did I feel like the officials we came into contact with knew the rules of the sport or had the kids safety in their best interests. Numerous times our staff was told that "this is my mat and this is my area." Well...it's not. You didn't pay for the mat and your name isn't on it. You are paid to take care of the kids and serve the kids. You didn't do that. We had a coach yell "time" to an official when he didn't hear the buzzer and the towel wasn't thrown. His response "Coach your kid, not me." I had an official tell me that I couldn't talk to the other coach after the match by his mat and that I couldn't talk to my wrestler and his parents who were sitting at the bleachers. He followed me off the mat to tell me that. 4 different officials told me that if wrestler A and wrestler B are hip to hip and B has stepped over the leg of A but A is under both arms...this is not a takedown or reversal by A. One official told me that you can lock around the legs after a takedown or control has been established. 5 different officials didn't know the basic rules of the sport. We had 3 different mats wait for kids to have coaches, which I have no issue with at all. Then I look down and see my kid wrestling. I sprint down to coach about the last minute. I asked the table help and the official why the match was started when my Novice wrestler didn't have a coach. I was told they were given the directions to start the match with or without the coach. So...I asked Littlejohn about that situation and it was made clear to me that they were NOT told that. So again, we had an official just do what he wanted instead of doing what he was told by the head official.

2. Until there is a better system in place to verify the ages and grades of the kids wrestling on teams at the state duals, we most likely won't attend again. You can take that how you want...but many of the teams now know what happened in our division and are aware of the team that did it.

3. Wifi/Cell Service/Track Wrestling - Terrible

4. Bathroom and locker rooms - Terrible

There is a better than 50% chance we will not be an ISWA Club next year unless some things change. The ISWA brought in about $77,000 from this tournament. I don't know the net because I don't know the expenses, but with $77,000 you should be able get better officials and, IMO, a better venue. Yep, this tournament had about 400 more kids this year, but I'm telling you, if you don't put out a better product, you will start losing kids again. HYWAY or some other organization will start challenging you again and this time, they might take over. People work hard for their money and this organization and the people the hire better start realizing people won't pay for a crappy event that they feel like they didn't get a fair shake at.

Our club had a great day of wrestling and finished really well for a small club in rural Indiana...but we had a terrible experience. I honestly don't know if we will be back.

Clint Gard

If it was mat 1, 2 or 3 I would be happy to tell them who mat it actually was lol...Had to take a folding chair off of my brand new mat at start of Sundaythat somebody had set up in the middle.

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Jim and Clint I am sorry to hear about the issue's you have experienced and raised above. I can tell you that Jim Littlejohn was dealing with a few officials issues and he was addressing all of them or will be addressing them. Anything else I would be happy to discuss with you and take to the board at our next meeting.

@Clint Gard, I have printed out your msg and will make sure that issues are brought up to the right people.

@Jim calhoun, I believe it was just wrong and should not have happened that way but again I believe this is likely one of the things the lead official Littlejohn is going to look into.

Guys we are all sorry and always looking of ways to improve and do better and welcome the feedback.

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I had only one negative experience other an official, but it was brutal. Twice in a period, kid gets 4 counts for nearfall, no points awarded. I ask him about it he says it takes 4 full swipes for nearfall. I informed him it was only 2 full swipes and he said that was untrue. I tried to get him to ask the other official sitting matside l, he refused, which I understand for judgment calls but he admitted it was 3.5 swipes...not a huge deal grand scheme wise, but just such a simple rule to not know...

The line Friday night to print the USA card was atrocious as well. Kids stood in line for more than 2.5 hours just to print a card that they could have just pulled up on their devices...seems like a silly rule to me. All in all, very crowded in the field house, and there’s room for improvement, but I felt it was a good spot to end a folkstyle season for our kids.

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Jim and Clint I am sorry to hear about the issue's you have experienced and raised above. I can tell you that Jim Littlejohn was dealing with a few officials issues and he was addressing all of them or will be addressing them. Anything else I would be happy to discuss with you and take to the board at our next meeting.

@Clint Gard, I have printed out your msg and will make sure that issues are brought up to the right people.

@Jim calhoun, I believe it was just wrong and should not have happened that way but again I believe this is likely one of the things the lead official Littlejohn is going to look into.

Guys we are all sorry and always looking of ways to improve and do better and welcome the feedback.

@JMILL much appreciated. I spoke with Jim Littlejohn more times than he or I care to count I would imagine. He was frustrated. I'll continue to reflect on this weekend and this season and pass along my thoughts. I think WC does a good job with what they have...I wish I had it...but the event is just too big for any one school to handle. The ladies running the brackets, did a fabulous job. Table help was good. That's a thankless job! But I will reiterate...as long as the officiating continues in this trend, Rochester will look at other ways to get quality mat time. I will not subject my kids and my families to this type of officiating or venue for the money they are paying. Keith and Ryan know about the State Duals and we have discussed ways to make verification of age and grade better. I am continuing to think about it and will pass along suggestions. One our coaching staff has thought about is that any participant in the elementary state duals must be a registered member of the club they are wrestling for by a specific date or they cannot wrestle for that club/team. That would do away with all wild cards. We thought a November 1st deadline was fair. This would give parents that signed up in September for their card to change their affiliation to the club they were going to wrestle for. Also, it's just in time for dual tournaments to start throughout the state, so if schools wanted to put that restriction on their tournament they could...so teams couldn't build all-star teams. That type of restriction can be easily tracked on USA Wrestling. Just a thought.

I had only one negative experience other an official, but it was brutal. Twice in a period, kid gets 4 counts for nearfall, no points awarded. I ask him about it he says it takes 4 full swipes for nearfall. I informed him it was only 2 full swipes and he said that was untrue. I tried to get him to ask the other official sitting matside l, he refused, which I understand for judgment calls but he admitted it was 3.5 swipes...not a huge deal grand scheme wise, but just such a simple rule to not know...

The line Friday night to print the USA card was atrocious as well. Kids stood in line for more than 2.5 hours just to print a card that they could have just pulled up on their devices...seems like a silly rule to me. All in all, very crowded in the field house, and there’s room for improvement, but I felt it was a good spot to end a folkstyle season for our kids.

@Coach Brobst we have identified the issue with the USA card line and will be working to make that a better smoother process for next state, the reason no phones are allowed is because of the SafeSport and other obvious things as I am sure you can understand. Its something we just can't take a chance with.

The copy of USA card on your phone works great for all open tournaments for proof at registration just not with weigh ins at the scale.

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Clubs having illegal kids at State Elem duals has always been an issue, as is I guess now clubs paying for Wild Cards. It's gotten insane.

I've offered to help out Ryan and Jason in any way they need help next year to help clean up the issues.

I have seen kids wrestle one division for a couple weeks then up in age the next week - take some L’s and then back down. The parents scrub their kids track profile and have two of them. I figure if it’s that important to the parent to teach their kids to be dishonest - that’s on them. This is all just practice for Life anyway and I’m going to teach my kids work hard , respect and honesty - It does irk me though when I see it.

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@Coach Brobst we have identified the issue with the USA card line and will be working to make that a better smoother process for next state, the reason no phones are allowed is because of the SafeSport and other obvious things as I am sure you can understand. Its something we just can't take a chance with.

The copy of USA card on your phone works great for all open tournaments for proof at registration just not with weigh ins at the scale.

That totally makes sense now. Wasn’t thinking about that. I figured there was some reason, but couldn’t come up with it. Thanks!

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One our coaching staff has thought about is that any participant in the elementary state duals must be a registered member of the club they are wrestling for by a specific date or they cannot wrestle for that club/team. That would do away with all wild cards. We thought a November 1st deadline was fair. This would give parents that signed up in September for their card to change their affiliation to the club they were going to wrestle for.

I know this is a little off the main discussion topic, but our club does not start till end of November. I believe the season is long enough already. 4 months of folkstyle then another month and half of freestyle. I fear of the burnout factor for the younger kids.

Also, I am not sure it would fix the "All Star" teams. I think it would be worse as clubs could pull in any kid and just add them as a member.

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If the issues that are being stated about Elementary Duals are true, it is time we reflect on what the purpose of the event is. Obviously it has gotten way out of hand if we are paying kids or having illegal kids on teams. That kind of win at all costs atmosphere at that age is not healthy for the kids and the sport.

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I know this is a little off the main discussion topic, but our club does not start till end of November. I believe the season is long enough already. 4 months of folkstyle then another month and half of freestyle. I fear of the burnout factor for the younger kids.

Also, I am not sure it would fix the "All Star" teams. I think it would be worse as clubs could pull in any kid and just add them as a member.

You don't have to start November 1st, just have sign ups. I agree with you on the length of season. I'd be fine with a December 1st date as well. I agree with you, you would have "All-Star" teams but at least they would have to be part of your club and at least everyone else knows what's going on. If I've got a guy on my team from Richmond, Indiana then people know two things...he's a member of my club and he is probably not an active part of my club. Nobody from Richmond is going to travel to Rochester to practice with my club. Now, if I've got a kid from Plymouth, then most likely they are practicing with us and it can be argued/proven they are an active member. Maybe I'm making it too simple...but I'm open to anything that allows for a level playing field. What are your thoughts?

If the issues that are being stated about Elementary Duals are true, it is time we reflect on what the purpose of the event is. Obviously it has gotten way out of hand if we are paying kids or having illegal kids on teams. That kind of win at all costs atmosphere at that age is not healthy for the kids and the sport.

OMG.............I AGREE WITH THIS POST & its CREATOR !!!

what in the world is going on here ???

no way I can leave work now as I am clearly gonna get into an accident or struck by lightning on way home !!!!

Maybe this kind of good fortune will carry over to my arrival home this evening.....honey if you are reading this ?????

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If the issues that are being stated about Elementary Duals are true, it is time we reflect on what the purpose of the event is. Obviously it has gotten way out of hand if we are paying kids or having illegal kids on teams. That kind of win at all costs atmosphere at that age is not healthy for the kids and the sport.

We host a elementary county tournament. we do NOT allow any wild cards. below in the language I added to balance out the "no wild card" issues....

REQUIREMENTS
No all-star or academy teams allowed. Limited to 6th grade (first year schoolboy/girl) or below wrestlers. Each wrestler must have a USA Wrestling Card. Each team will be limited to 23 participants. Folkstyle rules w/ three one minute periods, standard overtime rules. All other high school rules and guidelines apply. Head gear and mouth pieces are required. This will be a USA Wrestling sanctioned event.

The members of each team must attend school within the SAME school district of which the participating club is located. Exceptions: Wrestlers who are home schooled or attend a private school outside your school district may also be considered, if they live in your school district.

FORMAT
Standard dual team scoring, with one exception. In order to not penalize teams for not having a full team lineup, if you do NOT weigh someone in at a weight class and you have to forfeit that weight class during a dual meet, the team receiving the forfeit will receive 3 team points instead of 6 team points. If you forfeit a weight class with no wrestler weighing in, you must forfeit that weight class for ALL dual meets in the tournament. If you weigh any wrestler in at a weight class and if you forfeit that weight class for any reason, the team receiving the forfeit will receive the standard 6 team points.

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We host a elementary county tournament. we do NOT allow any wild cards. below in the language I added to balance out the "no wild card" issues....

REQUIREMENTS
No all-star or academy teams allowed. Limited to 6th grade (first year schoolboy/girl) or below wrestlers. Each wrestler must have a USA Wrestling Card. Each team will be limited to 23 participants. Folkstyle rules w/ three one minute periods, standard overtime rules. All other high school rules and guidelines apply. Head gear and mouth pieces are required. This will be a USA Wrestling sanctioned event.

The members of each team must attend school within the SAME school district of which the participating club is located. Exceptions: Wrestlers who are home schooled or attend a private school outside your school district may also be considered, if they live in your school district.

FORMAT
Standard dual team scoring, with one exception. In order to not penalize teams for not having a full team lineup, if you do NOT weigh someone in at a weight class and you have to forfeit that weight class during a dual meet, the team receiving the forfeit will receive 3 team points instead of 6 team points. If you forfeit a weight class with no wrestler weighing in, you must forfeit that weight class for ALL dual meets in the tournament. If you weigh any wrestler in at a weight class and if you forfeit that weight class for any reason, the team receiving the forfeit will receive the standard 6 team points.

In an era of illegal kids, I could see a team not weighing in a weak wrestler that would get pinned just to save 3 team points each dual.